Brother DS-740D vs Epson WorkForce ES-400: Best Document Scanner for Small Business

If you scan contracts, invoices, or receipts more than a few times a week, you have probably landed on these two: the Brother DS-740D and the Epson WorkForce ES-400. Both are legitimate, well-reviewed document scanners targeting the small-business buyer. The short answer is that the Brother DS-740D wins for most founders, and the reasons come down to footprint, portability, and total cost. The Epson has a real case for high-volume desktop users, but it costs more and takes up more space. Here is the full breakdown.

I will be direct: this comparison is about which scanner actually earns a permanent spot in a working business, not which one has the prettier spec sheet. The DS-740D is what I recommend to most small-business owners I know, and the table below shows you exactly why.

	Brother DS-740D	Epson WorkForce ES-400
Scan Speed (simplex, 300 dpi)	16 pages per minute	35 pages per minute
Duplex (both sides in one pass)	Yes, automatic duplex	Yes, automatic duplex
ADF Sheet Capacity	20 sheets	50 sheets
Footprint	11.8 x 3.0 x 2.7 in (fits in a bag)	11.2 x 7.5 x 6.9 in (desktop only)
Power Source	USB bus-powered (no AC adapter needed)	AC adapter required
Connectivity	USB	USB and Wi-Fi
Bundled Software	ABBYY FineReader, Brother iPrint and Scan, Nuance Power PDF	Epson Document Capture, ABBYY FineReader
Weight	0.9 lbs	7.0 lbs
Current Price Range	Under $175	Over $280

Where the Brother DS-740D Wins

The DS-740D wins on form factor, and that matters more than it sounds. At under one pound and small enough to slip into a laptop sleeve, it is the only scanner on this list you can realistically take to a client meeting, a co-working space, or a hotel room. If you run a mobile business or split time between offices, the Epson simply cannot follow you. The Brother can.

The bus-powered USB connection is a bigger deal than most reviewers give it credit for. You plug it into a laptop and it works. No wall outlet hunting, no AC brick to lose, no surge protector juggling. For anyone running lean on desk space or working from a kitchen table, eliminating one more cord and one more power block is a genuine quality-of-life improvement.

The software bundle is also stronger out of the box. ABBYY FineReader handles OCR well enough that your scanned contracts are searchable PDFs, not just images. Nuance Power PDF, which is included, retails separately for more than most people expect. Brother is essentially packing $100-plus of software into the box, which makes the already-lower hardware price an even better value for a small-business owner watching every dollar.

Finally, the DS-740D's 20-sheet ADF capacity covers the vast majority of small-business scanning jobs. Scanning a 10-page contract, a week of receipts, or a batch of invoices falls comfortably within that range. You would have to be running a high-volume accounts payable operation before the 20-sheet limit becomes a real constraint in your day.

Where the Epson WorkForce ES-400 Wins

The Epson's 35-page-per-minute speed and 50-sheet ADF capacity make it the better tool for pure volume. If you have a team member whose entire job involves batch scanning, or if you process hundreds of pages daily, the Epson gets through work roughly twice as fast. For that specific use case, the higher price and larger footprint are a fair trade.

The Wi-Fi connectivity is also a legitimate differentiator for shared office setups. If multiple people need to send documents to the same scanner from different machines, the Epson's wireless capability handles that without extra software gymnastics. The Brother requires a direct USB connection, so it is always a single-user device. In a solo operation that rarely matters. In a three-person office sharing one scanner, it does.

The Brother DS-740D solves the problem most small-business owners actually have: a fast, reliable scanner that fits on any desk, travels anywhere, and does not require a dedicated power outlet.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the Brother DS-740D if you are a solo founder, a consultant, a freelancer, or a small-business owner who scans contracts, receipts, and invoices as part of a regular workflow but does not need high-volume batch processing. That describes the overwhelming majority of people shopping in this category. You will pay less, get a scanner that travels with you, and have a solid software bundle to build a paperless filing system from day one.

Buy the Epson WorkForce ES-400 if your operation genuinely needs to scan 100-plus pages daily, you have a fixed desk where the unit lives permanently, you have multiple users who need wireless access, and the higher price fits your budget. That is a real use case, but it represents a smaller slice of the small-business buyer pool. Most founders overshoot their actual scanning volume when they imagine their needs, and the Epson ends up being an expensive piece of equipment sitting mostly idle on a credenza.

One more consideration: if you have ever put off scanning something because the scanner was buried in a cabinet or lived in another room, the size and portability of the DS-740D removes that friction entirely. The best scanner for your business is the one you actually use, and the Brother's form factor makes it far more likely to sit right next to your laptop every day.

Real-World Performance Notes

Across more than 2,300 reviews on Amazon, the DS-740D averages 4.3 stars. The consistent praise centers on reliability, the true duplex capability in a portable package, and how well it integrates with cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. The most common criticism is that 16 pages per minute feels slow compared to desktop alternatives, which is fair. If you are scanning a 100-page document in one sitting, you will notice the speed difference. For most people, the scan time for a typical document batch is under three minutes, which is not a meaningful bottleneck in any real workflow.

Driver setup on Mac and Windows is straightforward. Brother's installer is cleaner than it used to be, and most users are scanning within 15 minutes of opening the box. A handful of reviewers noted minor feed jams with thicker card stock, which is worth knowing if you plan to scan a lot of business cards or index cards. For standard letter-size documents, the feed mechanism is reliable.

Bottom Line

The Brother DS-740D is the better scanner for the typical small-business owner. It costs less, scans both sides automatically in a single pass, runs off USB power alone, weighs under a pound, and ships with a software bundle that covers OCR and PDF editing. Those advantages compound over years of daily use. The Epson WorkForce ES-400 earns its place in high-volume, multi-user, desktop-only environments, but that is not most small businesses. For founders and professionals who want a scanner that earns its keep without demanding extra space, power outlets, or budget, the Brother DS-740D is the straightforward choice.

If you want to go deeper on the Brother DS-740D before buying, the full long-term review covers six months of daily use scanning contracts, invoices, and receipts in a working business. See the Brother DS-740D long-term review for the complete picture. And if you want the unfiltered take on what this scanner does not do well, the Brother DS-740D honest review covers exactly that.